Brink of Destruction
by Eslaya
Summary: The world appears to be at it's end. The army of darkness is moving in, and has taken hold of all the lands. Can our heroes possibly save the day? Or does this mean the end for Elrios?
1. Pt 1 Ch1

Separated from the rest of her party, Aisha continues traveling deeper into the ruins. As she continues through the dimly lit tunnels she notices several statues lining the walls. Immediately when she gets to the center of the statues, the spring to life and flock to her location. She remains calm, dispatching the Gargoyle's with a simple casting of a spell, summoning forth the power of the demon of death. Suddenly the floor begins to fall rapidly and she is thrust down into the earth. As the floor lowers, several more Gargoyles appear. Flying up from underneath the moving floor is a similar winged creature, except it's size is significantly larger than the others'. Already feeling exhausted, she readies for the coming battle. As it charges at her she attempts to drain it's power with her magic, but the creature simply picks her up and tosses her off the platform, as if she were a toy it no longer cared to play with. Despite using her magic to slow her fall, she still slams into the ground, disoriented. As she looks up she notices a large beast that appears to have an aura of freezing energy around it with fang and claws nearly the size of the creature that tossed her down. She's in no condition to fight, as she can barely even stand now, her right leg possibly fractured. The creature hasn't seemed to notice her yet, and she quickly decides she should get away before it does. As she limps away, she trips over a small stone which rolls off, creating a loud noise. Suddenly the beast, massive beyond comparison, is staring straight at her. She begins to run as fast as she possibly can. As she runs the beast grabs the earth she is currently on and tosses it at the exit, knocking her into the newly formed crater and destroying her only chance of escape. The flying beast and it's several smaller versions come down from the falling platform and encircle her, trapping her deep within the ruins.

Out of nowhere a small yellow orb comes flying at Aisha. The ball hits the ground beside her and emits a field of bright light, rejuvenating her life force, healing some of her wounds from the fall. She feels much better now, but she's still much too weak to fight. As the fear continues to grow within her the monsters close in on her. She closes her eyes and awaits the inevitable darkness that is closing in on her. But the monsters don't come. She opens her eyes in time to see swords flying through the air and crashing through each of the gargoyles, pinning them into the ground. Landing in front of her is a boy with spiky red hair, who then summons a mass of swords from the ground, knocking back the remaining enemies. Over his shoulder he throws a small purple potion and says calmly, "drink up." She quickly downs the potion, now feeling fully prepared for battle.

She runs up to his side, staff in hand, and kisses him on the cheek, and says "thanks for the help." She turns to face the remaining enemies, an overly large gargoyle, and the massive beast of pure cold energy, now is not the time for their happy reunion.

As the red haired boy rushes forward, she casts a spell to enhance his strength. He jumps up at the flying beast, who easily dodges his attack, knocking him aside with his wings. At the same time the blue beast rushes forward and attempts to run him down, but he adeptly flips out of the way. The flying beast lunges toward the red haired boy, but as it prepares to grab him Aisha runs between them and summons a massive stone, knocking the flying beast to the ground. The red haired boy jumps up and comes down on the flying beasts neck with his two swords, severing the beasts head from its body. Upon this happening the massive blue beast howls angrily, the power of the howl sending both of them flying off in opposite directions. They both land on their feet, ready for whatever comes next. Suddenly the blue beast spits out a massive ray of pure cold energy, hitting the red haired boy, freezing him in place. The beast turns toward Aisha and charges directly at her, with the obvious intention of swallowing her whole. She summons forth her greatest of energy, and suddenly is engulfed by dark energy. From her hands shoot forth a bright red light, then another, then several, until there are multiple red lines covering all areas in front of her creating a dazzling light show of deadly red beams. When the light passes, the beast has fallen, pieces of flesh carved from its side.

The dark energy fades from her, and though exhausted she runs to the red-haired boy's side, crying "Elsword, please no. Elsword, please you can't die." She quickly searches for a torch, something, anything, she can use to heat him up, but finds nothing.

Standing next to him crying, she hears a voice yell out "MOVE!" and suddenly a gust of fire in the shape of a bird is rushing towards her and Elsword. She casts a shield around the two of them, but the fire is strong and still burns her slightly as it passes by. Behind her, Elsword's hand breaks through the ice, and eventually he works his whole body out of the ice cocoon he had forced into. Suddenly a blonde elven girl in a hunter's outfit jumps runs into Aisha's view, bearing a confident smirk on her face.

"Rena you could've killed us!," Aisha screams at the elven girl.

"We don't have time for you to wallow over things, we've got much bigger problems coming our way," Rena declares.

"What's happened?" asks Elsword as he recovers himself.

"I'm not entirely sure yet, but I think the El Crystal has been corrupted."

"How?!" Aisha says with a strong hint of fear in her voice.

"I'm not sure, but I do know that the Gates of Darkness have been opened, and this time they brought more than we could handle, but before we do anything we must first find a way out of this ruin, Have either of you seen Chung?"

"No we were separated when a wall suddenly fell between us," the couple declares.

"Well me may not have time to find him, although we may need him. We need to get out of here as soon as possible and return to Ruben."

As she finishes speaking a wall collapses and a large stone creature comes crashing through the wall, tossing a small blonde boy carrying a cannon across the room. He loses his grip on the cannon and it goes flying off towards the opposite side of the room. The boy lands with a crash on the ground, no longer moving.

"Chung!" Aisha screams out in horror.

Following the the massive stone creature are hundreds of smaller yet similar creatures. Suddenly several demons walk in. From up high similar looking creatures wielding bows aim at the 3 still standing. More and more demons continue to file in through the hole created by the large golem, steadily surrounding the warriors who have now surrounded Chung's body as if to protect him from greater harm. As the demons continuously flood in, one rides out on a bird-like creature, fully armored, and wielding a spear.

"Drop down your arms and we won't slaughter you," the demon declares.

"Never!" Aisha yells out as she charges forth to attack the demon, greatly underestimating it's strength and skill. The demon spins it's spear around and smacks her across the head, instantly knocking her to the ground where she lays unconscious.


	2. Pt1 Ch2

Aisha wakes up in a panic and tries to get up and move around, but she can't seem to move anywhere, her hands and feet have been bound behind her back, and she has been placed flat on her stomach. She tries to speak to cast a spell, but her mouth has been gagged as well. The room is dimly lit by a single hanging light, under which sits a single demon who is currently sleeping, from which she is separated by what appears to be crude iron bars. The walls appear to be brick that was laid in a haphazard fashion. It looks as if this place was built very recently, and in a huge hurry.

"Where in the world am I?" Aisha thinks to herself.

She squirms around to see if she can find her friends, anyone else in here with her, but it seems she is alone with this demon.

"If I can just uncover my mouth." Aisha tries to rub her gag on the ground, hoping it'll give way and slip off, but the gag was well done, and doesn't appear to be coming loose.

She's becoming desperate, searching for something, anything to help her get out.

Another demon bursts through the door, yelling unintelligibly at the now awake guard demon. After berating the guard for a few minutes the other demon walks out of the door. The guard demon walks over, opening what Aisha assumes is the cell door (it looks like they took a board and tied it to the bars) and walks up to Aisha, cursing her in his demon language, and kicks her across the face. He goes back out of the cell and returns to his chair, almost immediately falling back to sleep. Aisha, stunned somewhat from the blow she just received, realizes that the gag has come loose. It must have gotten caught on the demons boot and been pulled out somewhat, because now she rubs the gag on the ground and it slides right off.

"Come Angkor and feast on this foul demon," she says with a tint of rage in her voice.

At that moment a bat-like creature appears as if from thin air and attacks the sleeping demon. The demon screams in pain momentarily, but is quickly silenced by the demon-god Angkor.

Angkor then returns to Aisha and removes the bindings off of Aisha.

"You know, forming that contract with you was the best decision I've ever made. Now let's get out of here, but first, I need a staff."


	3. Pt1 Ch3

"_I can't believe myself. How could I let her get hurt like that?_" Elsword thinks to himself.

He, Chung, and Rena are currently all tied together with their backs to each other.

After capturing them the demons crudely cuffed them and brought them back to this obviously hastily built military encampment. Most of the "buildings" in the camp were tents filled with holes, each looking as again it had been the loot of some recent victory.

The only actual building is a small square brick hut, which appears to have built in a hurry within the last week. It is into this building that Elsword watched the demons drag the unconscious body of Aisha.

Ever since they were captured the only thing Elsword can think about is Aisha. Demons and other creatures of the army of darkness swarm around the camp, each of them staring at the 3 with disgust as they pass by. Chung has finally awoken from his earlier mishap, and he and Rena are currently attempting to formulate some sort of plan to escape, but Elsword pays them no mind. He is utterly distracted, lost deep in his own thoughts and worries.

"_I'm such an idiot. A failure. She was hurt right in front of me, and I did nothing. I stood there and watched her get beat down. Then I allowed them to take her into that building. Who knows what they're doing to her in there? I've failed her. No. It's not over yet, I can still save her, I will save her._ "

"I have to save Aisha," He mutters.

"Huh?" The other two say, confused by this sudden outburst as it related nothing to what they were discussing.

"I have to save Aisha!" Elsword cries out again, this time his voice filling with rage.

As his anger grows, magical blades begin to rise from the ground, cutting the ropes binding them, and cutting through the soldiers of darkness in the area surrounding the three.

Without hesitation Elsword jumps up and grabs a war sword that one of the demons was wielding before it touches the ground. It's a low quality weapon, but it'll do for now.

He charges toward the brick building, his rage growing with each step.

Rena manages to find a poorly stringed bow on one of the demons corpses, and expertly removes and restrings the bow in a matter of seconds.

Chung, unable to find a suitable weapon, simply remains close to Rena as she rushes forward to aid Elsword.

As Elsword rushes toward the door he is hit by a sudden bolt of dark energy, knocking him back but not down. Elsword looks up at his assailant. It is a demon in red robes carrying a massive wooden staff that contains a blue orb of magical energy at the end of it. Surrounding the mage is an aura of pure dark energy.

Rena without hesitation fires a barrage of arrows at the demon, but it surrounds itself in in a thick shell of dark energy, deflecting her arrows as if they were mere insects being swatted away.

The demonic mage immediately launches a bolt of dark energy at her, but Rena flips out of the way and dodges the attack.

As the mage is staring and focusing on Rena, Elsword lunges forward at the demon and connects, his crudely made demon sword cuts deep into the mage's side, causing a spurt of black blood to be released. The demon collapses to the ground and the small party relaxes somewhat.

"I've only seen Aisha use that type of magic before, have the demons taken her magic from her? We have to find her now, I'm afraid of what they may have done to her," Rena fearfully declares.

Before Rena can even finish her sentence, something begins to rise out of the body of the fallen mage. It begins as a deathly purple gaseous substance just leaking out of the fresh wound, then the gas begins to form into a spherical shape above the body. As the purple gas continues to seep out, a shape of some sort begins to form from within the gassy substance. The robes of the mage begin to deteriorate away, and eventually so does his body, and the bodies of all the demons laying around. All the while the shade fades more and more into existence, forming a floating body with what looks like well adorned purple robes. The face is completely blacked out, although the eyes seem to glow menacingly bright. It has no legs or arms, but it's hands float away from it's body, the hands appear to have claws sharper than any beast the groups ever seen. The purple gas continues to surround and seep off of it's body, moving in a continuous motion about the creature as though controlled by some force of gravity the creature holds.

Elsword, still in close proximity to the floating being of darkness, attempts to charge at it and slice through it, but as he attacks he simply passes through it. The being conjures a field of darkness that explodes violently outward, sending Elsword flying off into the air, landing hard against the ground.

Rena quickly adjusts her footing and begins firing several arrows at time. The arrows pass through the dark being as if it isn't even there, as if it doesn't really exist, and the being acts as if Rena doesn't even exist either.

Chung realizes that Rena has just exhausted all of her magical powers to release that barrage upon the being, and reaches to his belt where he still has a few leftover items that the demons didn't think to take. They are small unassuming orbs that no one but Chung would see any use in. Chung removes one and throws it on the ground by Rena and a massive field of blue light emits out from it.

"Thank you Chung," Rena says with a smile and a wink.

Rena quickly enchants an arrow with cold energy and fires it at the being. While the arrow seems to pass through without any sort of damage, the cold aura surrounding the arrow seems to damage the being, and the dark creature suddenly seems to take notice of Rena, flying straight at her, still appearing to be completely emotionless, as if it's chasing after Rena simply as if it were a task it was assigned rather than out of rage or self-preservation.

As the creature moves towards her Rena flips into the air and launches an arrow super charged with magic right into the being. This time the being receives the full damage of the arrow, and although it still doesn't appear to be angered, it does come after Rena with much greater haste, and a much greater want to be rid of her existence.

The being of darkness sends forth a stream of the dark energy surrounding it, and Rena deftly dodges strike after strike until the being slams both hands into the ground, causing dark energy to erupt from the earth, hitting Rena and sending her crashing into the ground.

Chung looks down at his belt, and notices he has one more of the spheres, this one a little different. He throws the sphere at the dark being, and it stuns the being temporarily as Chung rushes in to grab Rena's unconscious body, running as fast as possible to get her to safety.

Elsword, now standing and having just witnessed what had just happened, finally feels fear for the first time.


	4. Pt1 Ch4

Aisha, still not fully conscious, hears the voices of demons chattering around her. Though they speak in their demonic language, Aisha is able to comprehend them thanks to her contract with the demon god Angkor.

"Her power comes from her staff right?" A demon with a very rough voice questions another.

"Ye..ye.. yes I believe so. She doesn't seem capable of much without it. I.. I.. I'm sure that's how we can t..t..take her p..p..power and make use of it," a demon with a much weaker sounding voice mutters out fearfully.

"Good, good. You there, send for Dutor the Wise One. Tell him we're ready."

Before she hears anymore, Aisha falls back unconscious.


	5. Pt1 Ch5

As Aisha is searching through the dark room for anything she could use as a staff or even a simple wand she hears a loud commotion outside. She moves closer to the door hoping to hear better what is going on. As she approaches the worn wooden door she begins to hear the sounds of a battle, at the moment she arrives near the door she hears Rena scream as if in pain and then go silent, then she hears…. nothing.

Total silence.

She tries to open the door to run out but despite the rickety appearance it remains sealed tight.

Deep in panic Aisha turns towards Angkor. "GET THIS DOOR OUT OF MY WAY! HURRY!"

The large purple bat like creature lazily flies over to the door, latching itself directly in the center of the door, and, after a few seconds, explodes, sending bits of door flying violently outward.

Aisha immediately rushes out of the door and what she sees she can barely comprehend. Far off to the side is Chung, holding Rena's motionless body, obviously struggling to fight off the tears, and trying to push off the idea that their worst fear may have come true.

Opposite of Chung and Rena, and closest to Aisha is figure that looks simply like floating robes surrounded by flowing darkness.

And standing between the creature and Chung and Rena, is Elsword, bleeding severely and obviously using what strength he has left to remain standing.

As Aisha rushes out the door, the dark being rapidly advances towards Elsword, closing the distance between them in the blink of an eye, and charges straight through him, leaving no evidence of a wound. Elsword remains still for a moment, and then begins coughing, the red plasma flowing out more with each cough, and he falls hard to the ground and lies there without any signs of life.

Aisha, upon witnessing this sight let's out a bloodcurdling scream and falls to the ground in shock.

"ANGKOR HELP!" she yells out the orders as the tears begin to stream down her face.

Instantly the small purplish bat reappears, flying directly towards the being of floating robes.

The being turns towards Angkor and nonchalantly unleashes a bolt of dark energy, which connects with a small explosion, leaving behind a purplish haze. When the haze clears, nothing is there, Angkor is gone.

"ANGKOR NO!" Aisha screams as the creature begins flying towards her with obvious intentions.

Aisha jumps to her feet, her rage building inside. "You're killing.. all my friends, NOW IT'S YOUR TURN!" As she shouts out the last word she becomes enveloped in a dark purplish aura, the energy surrounding her appearing to rise and burn around her like flames. As she stands there in her ever building rage her robes begin to appear darker, and it seems as if her flesh is burning away leaving behind just the bone.

As the being advances ever hastily towards her, she makes no movement, she stands there as if the being doesn't even exist, as if the threat it holds to her is minimal if any.

When the being glides up close to her and goes to slash through her as it did to Elsword, she slowly lifts her hand up. As if out of the sky a massive stone falls and hits the being right as it is about to attack, knocking it back and sending it staggering.

The now skeletal Aisha suddenly begins rising into the air and slowly glides towards the shadowy figure. As she approaches the figure regains it's bearings and attempts to slash at her again. She dodges attack after attack, making the being appear to be grabbing at nothing each time with the speed at which she moves.

The dark being then begins to raise its hands to as if to slam against the ground and call forth a wave of dark energy, but as it raises its arms Aisha suddenly appears next to it and says very low in a voice half her own, half demonic, "No no no, It's my turn," and snaps her fingers.

Suddenly a violent explosion sends the being flying up into the air and landing hard against the ground. The being rises up and begins to charge mechanically towards the skeletal figure once again.

Aisha laughs demonically and snaps her fingers once more, this time a larger explosion throws the dark being flying off until it crashes hard into the walls of the prison that once held Aisha, and dissolves into thin air.

As she continues to laugh, her voice becoming ever more demonic in sound, she looks over at the one still conscious part member, Chung, who looks more terrified than when she had ran out into the encampment. Upon seeing this, Aisha, her rage suddenly subsiding, collapses to the ground.


End file.
